The Care and Feeding of Online Relationships

The Care and Feeding of Online Relationships

When dealing with websites and online vendors, the price we're forced to pay in order to get differentiated service is to "hand over the data" -- often data that's sensitive, valuable, and personal. It fragments not only the pieces of information that represents us online, and not only our sense of control, but our actual influence over these relationships.

The Vendor Relationship Management movement has captured the imagination of many individuals who want a more equal partnership with their online partners, and many vendors who want to attract customers more successfully. Do "classic" user-centric identity approaches change the balance of power, or just make it easier for us to consent to data-sharing we have no say in anyway? What can developers of open-Internet solutions, with their drive towards simplicity, and enterprise deployers, with their need for robust access and entitlement management, learn from each other? In this talk we'll look at candidate approaches for fostering greater mutual respect among online parties.